Method of extracting juices from citrus fruits and other similar fruits



Jan. 26 1943.

R. POLK. SR, ET AL METHOD OF EXTRACTING JUICES FROM CITRUS FRUITS AND OTHER SIMILAR FRUITS Original Filed Oct. 25, 1936 3 Sheets-Sheei 1 1 rrn IN VENT OR.

3/! Jr. a/m

ATTORNEY J Jan. 26, 1943. R. POLK, SR., ETAL 2,309,328

METHOD OF EXTRAQTING JUICES FROM CITRUS FRUITS AND OTHER SIMILAR FRUITS Original Filed Oct. 23, 1936 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. .2444 fizz J1me! Jan. 26, 1943. R. PQLK. SR, ET AL 2,309,328

METHOD OF EXTRACTING JUICES FROM CITRUS FRUITS AND OTHER SIMILAR FRUITS Original Filed Oct. 23., 1936 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTORS. .514? Jr. and

ATTORNEYIJ.

Patented Jan. 26, 1943 CITRUS FRUITS FRUITS AND OTHER SDIILAR Ralph Polk, St., Tampa, and'ltalph Polk, Jr., Haines City, Fla., assignorsto The Folk Devel-' opment Company, Tampa, Fla., a copartnersliip Original application October 23, 1936, Serial No. 107,208. Divided and this application November as, 1931, Serial No. 171,134

6 Claim.

This application is a division from our application Serial No. 107,208 filed October 23, 1936, which has matured to Patent No. 2,236,916, granted April 1, 1941,

The object or our present invention is to provide an improved method by means of which juices of citrus and other similar fruits may be more economically separated from rind, flber and seeds, if any, in such manner that the possibility of contamination of the fruit juices by juice' of the skin, fiber inated.

We have discovered that if the fruit be sesmented into segments of substantially less than 180 degrees of skin are, the segments may then be subjected to a continuously scrubbing or rubbing pressure continuously progressive tromone pole of the segment to theother at a rubbing speed exceeding the speed of transportation of the segment sothat the juice cells will be progressively ruptured without the necessity of sub jecting theiruit segments to pressures normal to the skin suiiicient to express from the seeds, flber and seeds may be practically elimand skin, any substantial amount 01 the juices contained in the seeds, fiber and skin, and that if the skin be so externally supported as to prevent substantial distortion of its normal transverse arc, the segments may be projected in rapid succession across the rubbing element in such manner that the skin will not be substantially cracked as to free any material portion of its acrldoily content.

Our improved method, therefore, involves primarily the application of a pressure radially of the fruit segment progressively applied from one polar end of the fruitsegment to the other, to'-. gether with a rubbing against the fruit cells at a speed in excess of the polarwise movement of the segment, said rubbing action being progressively applied to the fruit cells fromone polar end of the segment to the other. i

'while our improved method may be performed by hand, it will, manifestly, be more commercially profitable when performed mechanically and automatically.

The accompanying drawings illustrate mechanism for that purpose, including, as well, mech-. anism for segmenting the whole fruit. The drawings'also illustrate the practice of the method by hand assisted by the use of a rubbing Fig. l is a side elevation; Fig. 2 is a rear end elevation;

element.

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary elevation, in partial vertical section, of the halving cutter disc and adjacent parts, with the. feed chute omitted;

Fig. 4 is a section on line 1-4 or Fig. 3;

Fig. 5. is an axial section of a series 02 segmeat-forwarding elements of the juicer unit on line 5-5 of Fig. 6;

Fig. 6 is a fragmentary vertical section on one of the juicer units and adjacent parts;

Fig. 'Iis an elevationot one of the juice exthe performance of shaft l i which carries the fruit-forwarding wheel W. This head comprises coaxial discs l2, axially spaced at approximately an average fruit diameter and attached to shaft I I to rotate therewith. Each of these discs is peripherally notched by a series of notches II and each of these notches is flanked, on the inner faces of each end pair of discs, with fruit-cradled segments l5, thereby forming av series of circumferentially spaced fruit cradles or pockets adapted to receive fruit halves. At each outer corner of each fruit cradle is an inwardly projecting ear I8 arranged to form an extended contactor for the fruit halt adjacent its cut face.

Attached to the adjacent inner faces of the two middle discs l2, and aligned with each fruithalf cradle is a plate I! notched in its outer edge at ll so as to form, by each adjacent pair of plates, a whole-fruit receptacle or pocket having whole-fruit engaging tips I9. The bottoms of the notches II are' a little higher than the bottoms of the notches ll for a purpose which will appear.

Arranged in the medial vertical plane, between adjacent plates II is a rotary cutter disc 20 carried by shaft 2! and between each side of this cutter disc and the flanking plate I1 is a stripper finger 22 which is carried by a verticalplate 23 which lies immediately to the rear of the cutter disc 20 and is a trifle thicker than that disc.

Leading to the throat between the forwarding element W and the whole-fruit cutter disc 20 is a downwardly inclined fruit chute 25 through which the whole-fruit will be delivered by gravity to the forwarding element. 1

Immediately to the rear of plate 23, each series of half-Iruitpockets of the forwarding elesuitable source of power.

ment W is covered by an arch-shaped cover 28 which extends around and beneath the forwarding element so as to retain the half-fruits in The delivery end of each cover plate 26 leads to the throat of the juicer unit which comprises a segment-forwarding element II and a pulp-.

rubbing element 21. Each segment-forwarding element 80 is circumferentially grooved at 32 approximating the arc of the largest'fruit segment which is to be handled. andthis groove is provided with a plurality of transverse ribs 33 adapted to frictionallyengage, preferably without penetratiom'the external surface of the skin of a. fruit segment. Each element 30 is provided with a radially yieldable bushing by means of which. it is mounted upon' shaft 35 to partake of the rotation of said shaft but capable of a radial yield approximating the variation in thickness of the fruit skins.

The pulp rubberll is formed by a circumferential series of arc-shaped wires or rods 40 attached to the peripheries of a pair of discs 4i.

The curvature of the rods 40. is arranged to be 1 substantially concentric with the curvature of the groove 32 01' .the adjacent forwarding element I0 and the arrangement of these rods is such, as clearly indicated in Fig. 7, as to aiford ready outlet therebetween for the expressed fruit .juice and pulp. The several rubber elements ii are mounted upon a shaft 42 and the two shafts 25 and I2 are rotated in opposite directions'as indicated in Fig. 6, shaft 42 being rotated at a very much higher speed than shaft 35. :.Subtending the throats of the juicer elements is a juice-drainage plate 45 leading to a suitable juice receptacle 4.6 and interposed between the throatsof the juicer elements and the plate 45 is a skin deflector guide conveniently composed of a plurality of parallel wires or rods 41 which serve to separate the fruit skins from the juice and'deflect said skins to a suitable receptacle 48, the bottom of which may conveniently be an endless carrier (not shown) for the continuous removal of the accumulating denuded skins. I I

Interposed between thereceiving edge of the quarterlng cutter 21 and the accompanying fruit halves are two fruit obstructors 50 balanced on the medial line of the runway and conveniently short pins sharpened attheir rear edge, for a purpose which will appear. Shafts ll, 2|, :5 and 42 are rotated, at appropriate speeds, from a We have found in practice that if the segment-forwarding element 30 is rotated at ninety revolutions per minute, the cooperating pulp-engaging element 3| (conveniently referred to as a burr) may best be rotated at about sixteen hundred revolutionsper minute. The forwarding element W" should be rotated at such speed as to force thefruits into as rapid cutting association with the cutter discs .as possible without crowding the fruit'unduly,

and the cutter discs 20 and 21 should be rotat d at comparatively high speed relative to the rotation of the forwarding element W.

The operation is as follows:

Whole fruit rolling in a single series down chute 25 and arriving at the periphery of the forwarding element W are successively picked why the whole-fruit pocket notches of plate l1, one

on each side of the whole-fruit cutter 20, and carried into engagement with and past said cutter 20, acting to cut the fruit in halves. At about the time the fruit is nearly halved, it is brought into engagement with the stripper fingers 22, the upper faces of which are slightly above the adjacent'periphery of the cutter disc, but without destroyingthe forwarding contact of the rear tips I! so that, the fruit halves continue to be forwarded untilv they come in contact with the divider plate 23, the fruit halves at that time being substantially balanced upon the edges of the plate H. The divider plate 23 unbalances up fruit halves and permits them to tip over in 015? posite directions into the adjacent fruit half cradles whereupon the fruit halves are carried around beneath the forwarding lement W, being retained within their position by the cover plates 26. Each fruit half, as it reaches the medial horizontal plane of the forwarding element Wis likely to drop downwardly into engagement with the foresides of its retaining pocket, and it slides along the cover 26 until it comesin contact with the obstructors 50 which centralize it in the runway and detain it until the rear edge of the fruit pocket again contacts with the fruit, whereupon the fruit is driven over the obstructor and into cutting association with the quartering cutter 21 by which the fruit half if quartered and permitted to proceed in quarters. to the divider plate 29 which deflects each quarterinto the throat of the appropriate juicer unit, the forward polar tip of the fruit segment entering between the two elements of the juicer unit. The forwarding element 30 of the juicer .unit, moving at relatively slow speed and engaging the outer surface of the skin of the fruit segments, forwards the fruit segment through the juicer unit, while the rods 40 of the relatively high speed burr 2i compress and rub the fruit pulp polarwise of the segment, th skin being retained substantially in its normal arc and the forwarding elements yielding radially due to the yieldable bushing 34, to compensate for variations in skin thickness. The fruit quarters arrive. at the throats of thejuicer units lying'on one radial face but, as the tips of the segments become caught between the element iill and 3i, the segmentstend to centralize in the throat of the juicer element so that the juice and edible pulp is rapidly expressed by si- .multaneous' radial compression and polarwise of the bitter oils and juices of the skin to commingle with the desired fruitjuice.

-Referring to Fig; 11.90 indicates a mi; segment having a skin are of substantially les than 180 degrees, 9| a cupped hand in which the segment is supported so as to prevent substantial distortion of the transvers arc of the skin in opposition to applied rubbing pressure, and 92 a rubbing rod, the fruit segment being supported in the operators hand, the rubbing rod may be stroked against the 'fruit cells with a movement having both radial and polarwise components progressing through the segment polarwise, so as to rupture the juice cells, without substantial distortion of the skins, so as to free the fruit juices without contamination by the acrid oily content of the fiber, seeds and skins.

It will be readily understood that the segmentation of the fruit need not necessarily be upon arcuate radial planes or such as to entirely separate from the one segment.

As previously described, the fruit is cut into wedge shaped segments, the included angle of each of which is substantially less than 180 degrees. Such a section, therefore, has an apex line which extends from one pole to the other of the segments, and the term pole is used in the appended claims to accord with that definition.

We claim as our invention:

1. The method of citrus fruit-juice extraction which comprises the step of segmenting the fruit into segments having an included angleless than 180 degrees, and the step of subjecting such segments without preliminary crushing to radial pressure progressively from one pole of the segment to the other while supporting the skin against substantial rupture substantially through the transverse are opposite the exerted pressure.

2. The method of citrus fruit-juice extraction which comprises the step of segmenting the fruit into segments having an included angle less than 180 degrees, and the step of subjecting such segments without preliminary crushing to radial and polarwise pressure progressively from one pole of the segment to the other while supporting the skin against substantial rupture substantially through the transverse arc opposite th exerted radial pressure.

3. The method of citrus fruit-juice extraction which comprises the step or segmentin the fruit into segments having an included angle less than degrees, and the step of subjecting such segments without preliminary crushing to a rubbing pressure having both a radial component and a polarwise component said rubbing pressure being exerted progressively from one pole ,of the segment toward and to the other pole while externally supporting the skin against substantial rupture. I

4. The methodof citrus fruit-juice extraction which comprises the step of segmenting the fruit into segments having an included angle less than 180 degrees, the step of subjecting such segments without preliminary crushing to a rubbing pressure having both a radial component and a polarwise component said rubbing pressure being exerted progressively from one pole of the segment toward and to the other pole, and the step of externally supporting the skin of the segment as to its transverse arch to prevent injurious distortion of said transverse arch.

5. The method of citrus fruit-juice extraction which comprises the step of segmenting the fruit into segments having an included angle less than 180 degrees, the step of forwarding said segment endwise, the step of subjecting the pulp of the fruit to a rubbing pressure by a rotary rubber having radial and polarwise pressure components relative to the fruit segment, and the step of supporting the external surface of the skin substantially throughout the transverse arch of the segment opposite the rubbing pressure in such manner as to prevent distortion of the skin so as to cause substantial exudation of its oils.

6. The method of extracting Juice from citrus fruit which comprises the initial step of cutting the fruit into wedge-shaped sections and thereafter passing said sections endwise over a convex reamer roll transversely of the axis thereof while pressing the juice bearing pulp of the sections against the periphery of the roll while externally supporting the skin against substantial rupture.

. RALPH POLK, Sn. RALPH POLK, J3. 

